


Tell Me On A Sunday

by wintersky (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Break Up, F/M, Ficmix, Inspired by Music, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/wintersky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>The accompanying mix can be found <a href="http://8tracks.com/consultingmusicnerd/tell-me-on-a-sunday">here</a>.</strong><br/>I would strongly recommend listening to it as/after you read the fic! The most important lyrics, in my opinion, are included in the text, but hearing the music adds an element to it. (Basically, it's angstier that way).<br/><strong>***</strong><br/> <br/><em>After Sherlock's 'death,' John married Mary Morstan in the hope that he'd be able to pick himself up and keep on living.</em><br/><em>But when his friend came back to life- and back to John- he hadn't expected to fall in love with him, and hadn't expected that the life he'd so carefully constructed would slowly begin to fall apart.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me On A Sunday

_Surprise, surprise, couldn’t find it in your eyes,_  
 _but I’m sure it’s written all over my face._  
 _Surprise, surprise, never something I could hide,_  
 _when I see we made it through another day._

*******

As they lie in bed in their little Somerset house that morning, with the sun streaming in through the window, he tells her he’s going into London today for a conference.   
Mary smiles and nods and kisses his cheek.  
 _The drive into London won’t be fun on a Friday morning,_ she tells him; _you should get going.  
_ She gets out of bed and tells him she’ll iron his nicest shirt.

But John sees it, the flicker of doubt, of knowing, in her blue eyes; the corner of her mouth tugging down when she smiles. _  
_He sees the sadness she tries to hide, and when he falls into Sherlock’s arms that night her face is behind his eyes.

*******

_Nobody knows me like you;_  
 _nobody knows me like you._  
 _We’ve got a lot to get through…_  
  
 _We could pretend, pretend for the weekend._  
 _Outside the night’s as young as us,_  
 _tonight it’s just the two of us…_  
  
 *******

Afterward, Sherlock lights a cigarette in bed while John goes to shower.  He leans up against the headboard and closes his eyes, blowing out a cloud of smoke and thinking.

 _When Sherlock came back from the dead, one cold night six months ago, they had made love; sweet and right and_ I’m sorry _; three years of waiting for what they’d always needed._  
 _And afterward, John had broken the news that he was to be married the next month…_

 

Sherlock takes another drag as John appears in the doorway, wrapped in a towel. He climbs wordlessly back into bed and Sherlock stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray- the Buckingham Palace ashtray- on the nightstand.

John curls in next to him again, whispers “G’night, love”; Sherlock switches off the light and kisses him, and he listens as John’s breathing grows deep and slow.

He lays there awake all night with John sleeping in his arms, and he knows that John deserves better than this.

*******

_I don’t want anything more_  
 _than to see your face when you open the door._  
 _You’ll make me beans on toast and a nice cup of tea,_  
 _then we’ll get a Chinese and watch TV._

*******

The weeks pass.

This time, he tells Mary he’s going into the city to see his sister; _it’s been ages,_ John explains, and he feels guilty.  
He swallows and waits nervously. Mary smiles, like she always does, and tells him to have a lovely time and give her love to Harry & Clara, and she’ll see him on Monday.  
  
She kisses him and John is out the door and in the car with the bag he packed last night, putting his head down on the wheel and taking a deep breath, bracing himself, finding the strength to pull out of the short driveway, waving to his wife in the rear-view mirror.

 

Tonight Sherlock is careful and slow. He senses that something is wrong, and in the silent haze after, he kisses John gently and asks him if he wants to leave.

“Leave? Leave the flat and go out for- _oh. Leave._ ” John’s eyes flicker with understanding.  
“Leave _you._ No, Sherlock, no…” His voice is strained, passionate. He sits up and looks Sherlock in the eyes, pleading with him.

“I _want_ to be with you. Please…I _want_ to be here, understand? I love you and I want to be with you. I just hate that it has to be…that it has to be like this.”  
  
John squeezes his eyes shut and gives a little gasp of frustration. His mouth is suddenly dry and he chokes out “ _God,_ Sherlock, I love you _so much._ But…”

The unspoken words hang heavy in the air as Sherlock comes to him, kisses the silent tears from his face. He comforts John as best he can, hating to see him like this, hating what’s become of them.

So he holds him closer and doesn’t utter a word, hoping that he will be enough.

*******

_You tell me that you’re scared you’re turning into your mother,_  
 _and I feel myself turn into my father._  
 _We could lie to each other like they do and say we’re so happy;_  
 _it’s easy when you’re young and you still want it so badly._

*******

“Mary? Can we…Can we talk?”

John takes a deep breath. His pretty wife pokes her head round the corner and said “Yes, sweetheart, what is it?”  
Mary’s smile is sweet and strained. She has been waiting until he’s ready to bring it up.

_Ever the good wife._

She pours them both a fresh cup of coffee and sits across from him at the dining table that once belonged to her grandmother. Mary takes a sip, John mirrors her; she folds her hands neatly and waits for him to speak.  He fiddles with his wedding band.

“Mary, I…I love you. You know that. You _know_ that, don’t you?”  
John’s voice is immediately urgent, pleading, begging for reassurance. He swallows.

“Yes, John, my love. Of course. And I love you, just the same.”  
  
Mary smiles sadly.

“But,” she presses quietly.

John sighs. “God. God, is it _that_ obvious?”  
  
His voice breaks as he says quietly, “Mary, I’m seeing Sherlock.”

John lowers his gaze like a child waiting for a reprimand. When he glances back up at her, it’s like he expects her to slap him.  
  
  
Mary thought she had prepared herself for anything, but the raw pain in her husband’s eyes is a knife in her breast.  
  


She covers his hand with her own- he flinches.  
She murmurs “I know.”

John’s head darts up. His eyes flash with confusion: “What? You- you _knew?_  For…for how long?”

“Since the wedding,” Mary answers.

“The- since the wedding-  Mary, _how?"_

“When he gave his toast, my love. The way he looked at you, the tenderness in his eyes…This is _Sherlock Holmes_ we’re talking about. He doesn’t look that way at just _anyone._ ”  
She gives a short, soft laugh. John looks like he’s about to cry.

“God, Mary, I’m sorry…I’m so, so sorry.”

He rests his elbows on the table and cradles his head in his hands. Mary’s heart breaks for him.

“It’s always been him, hasn’t it?” she asks softly, no malice in her voice. “When he…when he came back, it was like you had come alive again, too.”

The look in John’s eyes tells her all she needs to know.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.  
The tears come then, and she moves to soothe him; they hold each other steady in this new, unfamiliar world.

The forgotten coffee has long cooled when John asks “What now?”

Mary had been wondering when this would come up. Her voice wavers when she says “I don’t know.”

*******

_I won’t regret saying this, this thing that I’m saying._  
 _Is it better than keeping my mouth shut? That goes without saying._  
  
 _Call, break, it off;_  
 _call, break, my own heart._  
 _Maybe I would’ve been something you’d be good at;_  
 _maybe you would’ve been something I’d be good at._  
 _But now we’ll never know._

_I won’t be sad but in case I go there, every day;_  
 _to make myself feel bad,_  
 _there’s a chance I start to wonder_  
 _if this was the thing to do_.

*******

They don’t discuss it again for days. John knows what he has to do.

He drives into London early one morning, nearly three hours in the car on his own. He keeps the radio off and drives through the gently falling rain in a lonely silence.  
  
Mrs Hudson hears the doorbell at seven-thirty and looks out the window to see John standing outside. His mouth is set in a hard line and his eyes are cast down; she senses straightaway why he’s here, and _tsks_ sadly. _Oh, those boys…It couldn’t last forever._

She goes to fetch Sherlock.

He knows immediately. He’s known it for weeks, since the last time they met; John was too torn up, feeling too guilty for it to last too much longer.

  
He knows, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when John tells him, his voice flat and his face expressionless, that he was sorry but he couldn’t do this anymore.

  
Later, Sherlock will remember he nodded, accepting the end he knew had been coming. They stood staring for a moment, unsure of themselves; and then, in a sudden rush, Sherlock pulled John in for one last tight embrace.  
John breathed a shaky, rattling breath in Sherlock’s arms and whispered _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

*******

_I don’t know where I am going to rest my head tonight._  
 _So I won’t promise that I’ll speak to you today._  
 _But if I ever find another place, a better time;_  
 _for that moment, I was never what I am._

_Take me to where you are, what you’ve become,_  
 _and what you will do when I am gone._  
 _I won’t forget;_  
 _I won’t forget…_

_Maybe someday, you’ll be somewhere, talking to me as if you knew me;_  
 _saying ‘I’ll be home for next year, darling;_  
 _I’ll be home for next year.’_

*******

Neither of them can help but think that maybe, if the timing had just been different- if they hadn’t been so stubborn and blind before- things could have been different for them.  
They could have had months, years; a lifetime together.  
Instead, they had this, this card castle built on whispered hopes, which fell apart as they knew all along it would.

Neither can bring himself to regret it.

*******

_You know I’m not mad anymore, at least most of the time;_  
 _but that could take a while._  
 _I’ve been living just to see you smile, every once in a while._  
 _I knew if I made it easy for you, you’d settle for me;_  
 _yeah, eventually._

*******

Mary and John go back to living.  
She knows, although John has not told her, that it’s over for John and Sherlock; she knows this should make her happy. She should be feeling triumphant, vindictive, glorious- _he chose me, after all._

But how can she, when her husband, her beloved John, is a gray and broken image of the man she loves _?_  
She sees it all in his eyes. She knows that when he holds her he wishes she was someone else.

*******

_Don’t think I didn’t deserve what I got._  
 _Don’t think I didn’t deserve what I lost._  
 _I run empty til I, I feel nothing inside._

*******

Sherlock doesn’t let himself think of John after he leaves for the last time.

  
Months pass, and he settles back into his old lonely existence.  
Once, he tries using again; the seven-percent solution, his old lover and friend.  
 It does nothing.  
He feels nothing at all anymore.

*******

_How can I forget your love?_  
 _How can I never see you again?_  
 _There’s a time and place_  
 _for one more sweet embrace,_  
 _and a time, ooh_  
 _when it all, ooh_  
 _went wrong._  
  
 _I guess you know by now_  
 _That we will meet again somehow…_

_Time can come and take away the pain;_  
 _but I just want my memories to remain._  
 _To hear your voice,_  
 _to see your face;_  
 _there’s not one moment I’d erase._

*******

John thinks of Sherlock every day. The pain never lessens.

He knows he won’t forget, and deep down he doesn’t want to, but that doesn’t stop him trying.

First comes the drinking; then, the fighting.  
  
John sleeps on the sofa now. He works long hours, too long; and then goes out and drinks until the raging ache in his chest is dulled, at least until the morning.  
  
Mary shies away from his touch; he hates himself for it. They barely speak.

*******

**One Year Later**  
  
 *******

_Don’t leave in silence, with no word at all._  
 _Don’t get drunk and slam the door;_  
 _that’s no way to end this._  
 _I know how I want you to say goodbye._

_Don’t run off in the pouring rain;_  
 _don’t call me as they call your plane._  
 _Take the hurt out of all the pain._  
 _Take me to a park that’s covered with trees;_  
 _tell me on a Sunday, please._

*******

Mary wakes alone one Sunday morning. This is not unusual, as of late; but something is different today. She sits up in bed and frowns, and then throws back the covers and pads cautiously into the kitchen.  
  
“John?” she calls hesitantly.

No reply- but then, she hadn’t expected one.

She spies a note on the dining table and picks it up.

 

_I’m sorry.  
-J_

Mary knows, knows before she sees his shoes missing at the door, his half of the closet emptied, his car gone from the driveway. She knows it was only ever a matter of time.

She weeps for herself- _how could it all have gone so wrong?_  
She weeps for the man she loved, and loves still, and she weeps for the life they could have had, the life they were building together-  
and she weeps because she knows deep in her heart that he would never have truly been happy with her.

*******

  
_Wailing winds, alarm, in feathers it have dressed,_  
 _surrounding what's left inside its chest:_  
 _We too shall rest._

_Roaring lungs, as oath becomes through flight past trees._  
 _Only the rhythm of love escapes the harmonies,_  
 _leaving us a beat._  
  
 _In these hands I'll hide, in these hands I'll hide;_  
 _while this world collides, this world collides._

*******

The doorbell rings early in the morning.

Sherlock, eyes closed, lying on the couch, hears it. He opens his eyes and frowns.

He stands, throws on a dressing gown, thuds down the seventeen steps-

The door opens and there is John, his John, lugging a suitcase and wearing a sad, hopeful face.

He looks up at Sherlock, words forming on his lips; but before he can speak Sherlock takes John close in his arms and breathes him in; aching with missing him, needing him.  
They breathe together and stand motionless for what seems hours.

 

There will be explaining to do, later. There will be phone calls and endless tears; there will be apologies and visits to lawyers, and wounds that won’t heal for a long, long time.

But that is later, and this is now.

Now, John feels Sherlock’s heartbeat in time with his own and he knows that he is home again.

*******

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright for all the lyrics (and characters, for that matter) used goes to their respective creators/writers, etc.


End file.
